The Riots

Debate between David T C Davies and Lord Barwell

Thursday 13th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Gavin Barwell]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Decisions on individual sentences must be for judges and magistrates. It is reasonable for us as Members of Parliament to reflect in generality the views of our constituents, but the individual decisions must remain with judges and magistrates.

I wish to comment on some figures from my borough commander about the impact on crime resulting from that sentencing approach. If we compare Croydon in the period of 17 July to 14 August—including the day when the riots took place—with the period of 15 August to 11 September, property crime is well down, as we would expect because a huge number of property offences were committed on 8 August, but violent crime is down by more than 20%. That seems to show clearly that we are offered a false choice on crime and punishment, between those who argue for a tough punishment and that prison works and those who say that it and rehabilitation do not work and that people come out and reoffend. It seems to me that both those things are true: removing dangerous, violent people from the streets gives a break to the law-abiding and leads to a reduction in crime, but we must also reform our prisons so that they do a more effective job of rehabilitating people and changing their pattern of behaviour.

Finally, I want to turn to some of the underlying issues and come back to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham). It is important that Government and Opposition politicians reflect on some of their long-held views. When I listened to the statement and the debate on 11 August, some argued that the disorder was purely a matter of criminality and moral failing, while others argued that it was all about inequality and unfairness in society. It seems to me, again, that both arguments have some merit.

Clearly, there are issues about parenting and a lack of fathers. As a man, I certainly feel that there is a real role for making the case for the responsibility that men have, if they were present when the child was conceived, for the rest of that child’s life.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Gavin Barwell]

I need to make a little more progress, because I am conscious of time.

Clearly, we need to be careful about generalising. Several of my friends were brought up by single mums who did a great job, so we must not demonise any class of parents. There is, however, an issue about a lack of fathers and definitely an issue about people witnessing or experiencing violence at home. The WAVE Trust report in 2005 pointed that out strongly. There is a great community group in Croydon called Lives Not Knives, which works with ex-gang members, and I sat in one of its seminars about a month before the riots and listened to four ex-gang members, all of whom had either personally experienced or witnessed traumatic violence at a young age. There is a clear link between that and violent conduct later in life. I welcome what the Government are doing to address problem families and community budgeting. More could be done to promote fostering and adoption to take young people out of the care system, and clearly we must address educational disadvantage, exclusion and truancy.

I shall end by mentioning three issues to which I do not have a solution, but are relevant to the debate. On youth unemployment I obtained figures from the Library showing the trend in general unemployment versus youth unemployment over the past 20 years under Governments of all political complexions. In 1992, youth unemployment was two thirds higher than general unemployment. By 1997, it was double general unemployment; by 2001, it was 140% of the general unemployment rate; and in 2005, it was 165% of the general unemployment rate. We must address the other factors that are making it much harder for young people to find work in our society, relative to the general population.

We must also address the culture of materialism in society, which is one factor behind the behaviour we saw. It is clear from the situation in Croydon that there is an inextricable link between gang culture and the drugs trade. We must address the issue of how we deal with illegal drug use in our country.

I do not pretend to have answers to all the problems, but the emerging evidence of what happened throughout the country in early August has clear lessons for public policy. I look forward to hearing the contributions from other hon. Members.